"Get off me or I swear to God I will punch your ovaries so hard I will make sure that you can never bare children," I mumbled into my pillow as Nastia climbed on top of me as a wake-up call.
"Not until you get up little miss," She laughed as I sat up and looked at her.
"There, happy?"
"Not quite yet, now you need to get dressed and brush your teeth and get all prettied up for our day in Beijing," She got up and pulled the covers off of me, exposing the exposed parts of my legs to the cold morning.
"You're too spunky, you know that?" I laughed and got up, doing as she said.
After showering I left my hair wavy as I put on one of my many Liukin Gym t-shirts and a pair of jeans.
"Ready,"
"Well that was fast...you wanna go get breakfast before we leave? They are serving it down in the Village Cafe,"
"Sure thing Miss Liukin, future olympic gold medalist," I smiled, slipping on my sandals, and followed her out the door.
Village Cafe - 8:30 AM
"I'm really in the mood for a bagel," I said as we got in line behind a French Water-Polo player. Only reason we could tell was his shirt.
"Then get one, all this is paid for. You could eat the whole buffet if you wanted. People would get mad at you, sure, but you could is the point," Nastia giggled at her own joke. I laughed along for a found it really funny.
We got our food and took a seat at one of the booths in the cafe. "So what are we doing today?"
"I was thinking we could visit the Fire god temple and the confuscious temples. Wouldn't that be cool Becca? Maybe they give out fortune cookies! Then we could just go shopping and visit other random places in main city Beijing. Deal?"
"Sounds perfect!" I smiled. Today was going to be fun, I could already tell...there it was. Why do I keep getting the feel that someone is looking at me?
"Alright, let's finish our breakfast and tell my dad where we are going and then start our day!" Nastia was so excited. So we finished all our food and threw our plates away. We walked up the stairs into the coaches quarters, to Valeri's room.
"Dad, we're leaving!" Nastia yelled into the room. He came out of the bathroom from brushing his teeth and gave us both goodbye hugs.
"Be careful, and remember not to late, be back by 6 because we have to go to the ceremonies," Valeri reminded us.
"Of course Dad," Nastia smiled and we left the room.
Beijing Shopping District - 2 PM
"You would think that they would give us a list of all of Confuscious' sayings but I guess not," I sighed as we got off the bike buggy in the district.
"I agree that would have just made the trip," Nastia frowned. We walked past a bunch of stands with people selling odd foods and clothes of different colors and fabrics. We passed one booth that looked especially interesting to me so I asked Nastia if we could stop and she agreed to.
"Look how pretty this is!" I said holding up a ring with a stainless-steel band and a diamond in the center. "If I got married this is the type of ring I would want,"
"Ooo that's pretty," Nastia said taking it from my hands, "I agree with you. How much is it?"
The lady said some number that sounded expensive in Chinese so we just put it back.
"It was so perfect too," I sighed.
"Maybe if you meet a man here than you can get him to buy it for you and you could get married!" Nastia laughed as did I. That is why she is my best friend.
______________________________
"Michael get up!" Ryan yelled in my ear as I slowly turned to give him the meanest look I could muster. "That's just pathetic,"
"Sorry I just woke up and can't do an evil eye on command your highness,"
"Well if you put it that way I forgive you," I just rolled my eyes at that comment and suck back into my pillow. "But in all seriousness let's get breakfast,"
I looked back up at him and slowly pulled myself out of bed. No matter how tired I was breakfast always sounded good to me.
"Just let me get ready," I groaned.
"Who you getting all prettied up for? Mystery girl?" Ryan smirked as I threw a pillow in his face.
"It's called hygiene,"
Village Cafe - 8:30 AM
Ryan and I got in line and stacked our plates full of hotcakes, sausages, eggs, cereal, bagels and everything else you could imagine. We chose a seat on one of the rounded booths in the corner so we had good sight of everything in the cafe.
"Are you excited to walk tonight in the opening ceremonies?" Ryan looked towards me as I was stuffing my face full of food. I took a big swallow.
"Of course, that's always been one of my favorite parts," I said while wiping my face off with my napkin.
"What about you?"
After a few seconds without answer I looked towards Ryan and saw he was focused on something. He snapped out of it and asked if we could move to a table instead of the booth we were sitting at. Confused, I agreed, not knowing what he was up to.
A few minutes later I saw why.
"You are such a creep Ryan," I sighed and put my head in my hands. Two tables away was Nastia and her friend, "the mystery girl", as Ryan calls her.
"I'm just seeing if we can learn a few things," He said and gave me a mean look. I hated eavesdropping but I couldn't lie and say I wasn't curious. We tuned into their conversation and Nastia was talking about their plans for the day.
"--I was thinking we could visit the Fire god temple and the confuscious temples. Wouldn't that be cool Becca? --"
"Her name's Becca, now we know that," Ryan said in triumph at his plan.
"It's still creepy," I shook my head.
"Well you are going to feel even creepier," Ryan said, "Cause guess what we're doing today,"
"Oh no..."
"That's right! Confuscious Temples and Fire God temple here we come!"
This was going to turn out bad, maybe.
Beijing Shopping District - 2 PM
"Ryan are you sure you aren't a stalker/rapist? Cause you seem to know what you are doing," I questioned him as we got off the bus about 10 people behind Becca and Nastia.
"Shut up and just act natural," Ryan said hitting me in the arm and pulling me along.
"I need this for swimming! You don't hit it," I laughed and he mean mugged me yet again. "Okay, geez you are taking this too extreme,"
"Just come over here and pretend to look at the hats," Ryan pulled me to a booth.
We started eavesdropping on the girls conversation again as they were looking at rings. I looked through the mirror the vendor had so you could see how your hat looked and looked at the girls.
"--If I got married this is the type of ring I would want--"
The girls asked how much it cost but they assumed too much and left the ring there.
"Ok, let's go they are on the move," Ryan said.
"Go on without me for like 10 minutes, I still want to look around," I waved him away. He looked at me confused and walked away.
I had some shopping to do at the ring booth, I knew that I might need it later in these games.
Olympic Village - 6 PM
Ryan and I got back to the village and started getting ready for what was suppose to be the most extravagant opening ceremony in history.
"Ready to wait about 4 hours to walk?" Ryan asked putting on his USA outfit.
"Oh yeah totally," I said sarcastically.
"We might see Becca!" Ryan exclaimed like a school girl.
"Why do you think I'm obsessed with this girl? I mean all I did was stare at her a little last night and you think I want her to have my babies or something,"
"I want her to have my babies! Those would be some pretty sexy children, you agree?"
"Ryan, shut up. And besides, I don't have time for a girlfriend with all the training that I do, not saying that I want her to be my girlfriend."
"Then why did you go along with my scheme today? Huh?"
I didn't have an answer to that one. Just like if he knew that I bought that ring, I would definitly not have an answer.
"That's what I thought," Ryan smirked. "Now let's make our way downstairs,"
